


what the avatar sees: yoosung

by anon_drabble



Series: what the mirror sees [3]
Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Introspection, based on a quote, lolol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:15:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26312488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anon_drabble/pseuds/anon_drabble
Summary: the next in the series of what the mirror sees is yoosung!this series is based on the quote: “when we look into a mirror, sometimes we don’t like  what we see. but, fortunately, what we see is never the same as what  people love about us.”i don’t know who the next one will be. possibly seven because i have the idea for him already. maybe v since he’s easier to write lol.i actually ended up rather liking this one. it’s maybe not quite so much introspection as the previous two but i feel like yoosung is a bit more honest with himself about who he is. he knows his shortcomings. what he struggles with is more of what to do with himself. he has no course of action and he feels like that defines a person more so without a clear future, he feels like he’s losing himself.
Relationships: Kim Yoosung/Reader
Series: what the mirror sees [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1728010
Kudos: 6





	what the avatar sees: yoosung

Yoosung sighed, sliding his test results across his desk, out of his view. He hadn’t studied and, as expected, had failed yet another test. It seemed the only thing he did well anymore was fail. But it didn’t really matter. He didn’t have any particular interest in succeeding. He just did it for his mom. And maybe Rika. They’d be disappointed. Because that was Yoosung’s life now: Failure.

Well, failing and playing LOLOL. Too bad he couldn’t make LOLOL his life. That was where his passion was now, without his cousin in his life. The familiar loading screen transformed into the game world. The world he knew. The world that knew him. He quickly checked his contacts but no one seemed to be on. That was fine. There were groups forming for a large-scale event that he could easily hop into.

He added himself to the list of available players looking for parties. Almost immediately, he was pinged. The player asked to team up and Yoosung agreed. They met up, the other player’s avatar a cute girl. Ah, if only she’d be a girl in real life, someone he could play LOLOL with. They departed the city to begin the quest.

Loading the next screen, the other player sent a message. “I haven’t played this one much. Do you know where you’re going?”

Yoosung keyed in a cheer emote. “Of course! I’m SupermanYoosung!” he replied in the chat. He knew the world of LOLOL much better than the real world.

Or so he thought. But as he ran forward, the other player following closely behind, he found he recognized the familiar scenery but not the path. The music, the landscape, the fallen log he’d often jumped on to announce his supremacy in the game. He knew that to the left, if he were to circle a tree, he’d find a cave. To the south, there was a river and a little further, a small town on the river. He knew the world of LOLOL. He recognized all of that. But he didn’t know where he was facing. He glanced at the interface on the screen that normally showed a compass, a mini-map, and an arrow. An arrow to the goal. An arrow to follow. He slowed.

The girl messaged him again. “What do you see? Where are you going?”

“I-I don’t... I don’t know. The path... It’s... It leads nowhere,” he murmured to himself. He saw the path. Laid out in front of him. Beautiful. Simple. But a single step onto it and it was gone. Now it was elsewhere. Every step forward, he ended up farther away. “There’s nothing to follow...” He turned his character in a circle, looking at everything around him. “No one to follow anymore...”

“Where are you going?” she asked again. “Where is this leading? Where will you end up?”

Yoosung looked around. Now everywhere showed a new lane, a new road to tread down. But every single one blocked him. Stopped him. “I think I’m lost,” he finally admitted. “Everyone else sees their path. Their goals. They know where to go. What they want. Why don’t I?” His character fell to its knees, playing the animation that occurred when he fell in battle. When he lost. When he failed.

But then the girl smiled. Somehow her avatar smiled at him and reached for his arm. “I don’t know where to go either. I’ve never been here before. I can’t know where to go. Even familiar places change and we have to adjust. I hate that. But maybe it’s not so bad to go together.”

“Is that okay? Isn’t that like giving up? Wouldn’t you just see me as weak and stupid if I don’t know where to go or what to do?”

“Won’t it just be an adventure, then?” she replied rhetorically. Though she was nothing more than pixels on a screen, he felt a warmth from her words. He felt a comfort, knowing that it was okay not to know. Rika had begun to prepare him for his life. But she’d never given him the knowledge that it was okay to be lost sometimes. And it was okay to take a moment. And most importantly, _it was always okay to not know and not have the answers_.

“Going together would be an adventure,” he repeated. “And together we can find a future that suits us.”

Yoosung spun around in his chair, turning off the game. He hefted a heavy textbook into his lap. Now he could step forward and fear the future just a little bit less.


End file.
